“Surely, it is only when one has the capacity to think intelligently that one can meet life.” – Krishnamurti
To think intelligently, what does this mean?
Request: Though I started the posting with a Krishnamurti quote (appeal to authority?), could we please draw upon our own wisdom when responding? What does ‘thinking intelligently’ mean to you?
Discerning the difference between practical and psychological thought in the moment. If the difference is distinct, intelligence sees it.
Thinking intelligently means that thought ceases to project an illusory ‘thinker’. It no longer ascribes to itself the role of an individual continuous entity, a ‘me’ constructed from past memory.
An example of intelligent thinking:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Applying the useful thoughts, and discarding the useless ones.
This is true of psychological thought, but practical thought (though not a continuous “entity”), is a continuous process of developing and revising as new information is received.
Practical thought is “constructed from past memory”, but it can personify itself without believing it is anything but thought because believing (self-deception) is not practical…unless one makes a living pretending to be someone other than one actually is.
I would say that until it has been clearly seen that the ego, self, me is an illusory, continuous entity created by thought that it will be present in all thinking, ‘psychological’ and to some degree in ‘technical’. The duality is a product of thought. When K says “you are nothing”, “you don’t exist”. That is what he is pointing out. Thought is pretending that you exist!
Intelligent thinking is thinking that emerges from seeing things as they really are.
Given this definition, most of my thinking is pretty shtupidt.
Yes, but practical, technical, thought remains, and this means it may refer to its movement as I, me, mine, the same as psychological thought does. The difference, however, would be that this personification does not refer to a person, but to a particular thought process.
The image of Mr. Spock comes to mind, but I was never a Star Trek fan, so I could be wrong. Anyway, my point is that a brain disabused of its imagined identity my speak like a self-imagining brain because it is a particular thought process, as is a self-imagining brain. The critical difference being that one is burdened with a false identity, and the other is just a thought process.
Your criticism reminds one of what a solitary adventure this is.
It isn’t criticism. Don’t take it personally. I don’t disagree with or take issue with what you said…I just wonder how a brain with no illusion of self would speak and think. Would it drop the pronouns I and me and the word “mine”?
I suspect that the selfless brain would use the language like everyone else does because it would have no fear of language that supports and sustains the illusion, and it wouldn’t want to draw attention to its peculiarity.
I’ll bite! Useful thoughts, useless thoughts, examples please.
Fascinating! So different from Krishnamurti and similar thinkers! To see the whole process from its beginning through to its end, to have all of time past/present/future available to the mind, to see the full ‘lifespan’ of things.
Couldn’t you say that “the curiosity/seriousness to understand the ‘working’” is a type of passion, a goal?
How about hoping for different (better) results. Still insane?
I’ve had another thought. Another form of useless thought would simply be those that are of no use - no need for them to be totally fallacious.
Technical thought can also be useless - even if the models they represent are accepted by most everyone.
In meditation, when I am facing a wall, I see the wall and I know what I see. This knowledge is useless, and my conditioned idea of the wall is merely a story that I am telling myself (walls and the universe are not as I believe them to be) - all that I am doing is strengthening my world view via a subtle narration - what use is that?
Intelligent thought does not strengthen the self.
I can only speculate, but assuming intelligence would be aware of and interested in any mistakes or misunderstandings of thought, it may be that nothing thought does is “useless” to intelligence because no matter how erroneous or irrelevant a thought may be, intelligence is always learning from whatever transpires.
The whole premise of this thread is wonky it seems to me. Unless by intelligent it is meant clever, astute.
There is no such thing as intelligent thinking. Thinking is a tool, an inanimate one. Life is intelligent, all life, not just human, epiphanies are manifestations of intelligence which use thought to give meaning. Thought springing from epiphanies or insight does not linger and create more thought. The thinking process ends as soon as its task is complete.
The issue it seems to me is when thought assumes the role of intelligence and fosters more thought, and so on ad infinitum. How this process is even possible, for an inanimate, material-based(memory) process to take on a life of its own is fascinating. But it does not make it intelligent. Self-perpetuating yes, but intelligent in the sense of truly alive, no.
Yes, but I don’t know what intelligence actually is so I can only speculate, which is what I thought this thread was about…our speculations. If it isn’t, it is “wonky”.
Speculation is an example of thinking born of thinking, therefore incomplete, therefore incessant, in that more speculation is required to fill in the gaps. All thinking born of thinking is ‘unintelligent’ though that is a funny way to put it. It is like saying a hammer is un-alive. A hammer is meant to solve a problem not create one.
Seeing speculation for what it is, a mechanical movement based on dead, outdated, fuzzy knowledge, is an act of intelligence, depending of course on the nature of that seeing, whether it is spontaneous or itself speculative, imitative, second-hand.
Intelligence cannot be known. Life cannot be understood, obviously. It is not a finite thing.
The way I see it, intelligence cannot be used as adjective or an adverb – as in thinking intelligently or intelligent thinking, which is why it struck me as wonky. I guess that is why K uses the terms factual and psychological to describe the different flavors of thinking. The provenance of factual thought is intelligence, that of psychological thought is thought. Neither is “intelligent”.
But if as you say this thread is about speculating, then apologies for going off topic.
Wonky,
Yes and no. Apart from understanding that intelligence means “to read between the lines”, one cannot say “I know that I am intelligent”, nor can one say “I am intelligent”. One has heard others say, “You have intelligence in your eyes”, after which one wondered whether it was because the one who said it was also intelligent, who knows? This is because there is a feeling that intelligence lies outside the brain in the field where compassion lies. One also has understood it is this intelligence that is the bridge between reality and truth, it is intelligence that created the mirror within, the mirror of oneself which disappeared when the “I” went missing. It is because of this intelligence that one was able to use image-making to “have” insights. The heart chakra is still warm to the touch, and there is a feeling that that is where intelligence is to be found.
One has also wondered every few years whether or not the life one leads which is so different that the one one had prior to getting into K’s stuff, is really okay, as in “Is this really an intelligent way to live?”… but that doesn’t last long, perhaps just a small part of a day, and is gone the next morning… lol